Neil Grundon, Chairman of Grundon Waste Management, explains why environmental policies need to demonstrate positive change and showcase success.
At the end of October, the government published its Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan – and what a snoozefest that was.
I challenge anyone to wade through the 238 pages and discover anything that remotely translates into the real world; the practical things we can do and the benefits that will be achieved as a result. One of my favourite parts is the section on Cascade Effects. It talks of ‘virtuous cycles’ that can ‘accelerate adoption’.
I quote: “These interactions are not typically captured in sectoral modelling of policy savings, and not all sector teams have accounted for them. That is because these effects emerge from the interplay between technologies and policies across the whole economy, rather than within any single sector.“ No, me neither…
Right now, pressing home the green message is a really tough sell – both to businesses and the wider public. Producing word soup documents such as this does nothing in terms of demonstrating what can be achieved with the right leadership and the right solutions.
By that, I mean talking about the positives, the British businesses showing leadership and delivering success stories on a global scale. Companies such as our own O.C.O Technology, which is a world leader in carbon capture technology whilst demonstrating that the green economy is worth investing in.
Instead, we get wishy-washy policies and reverse turns that do no one any favours. Take electric cars, one minute we have big incentives to go electric, the next they are introducing a 3p per mile tax for electric vehicle drivers.
And don’t get me started on electricity charges… we have just been told that from next April Grundon’s energy fixed charges will more than double, with ‘further significant increases each year thereafter’. We’ve done our sums and, across our operations, that’s an additional cost of nearly £2 million we need to find over the next five years.
Why? It’s a ‘result of the upgrades required to the transmission network to meet the government target of decarbonising the grid by 2030’.
So if the economy isn’t tough enough, if we aren’t being asked (expected) to become greener and leaner as a business by investing in our own technology, which we continue to do, we are also having to pay the government to manage its decarbonisation programme too.
The cynic in me would suggest it’s companies like us that are being asked to subsidise the energy costs of the big boy businesses, such as steel and glass manufacturers, so they can stay more competitive on the world stage.
I think what has happened is that the environment and how we deal with issues such as net zero, climate change and energy security have become so polarising that the end goal is being lost.
It hasn’t been helped by the political turmoil that has seen 12 Environment Ministers (including the incumbent) since 2010 and the more recent creation of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, now led by Ed Miliband, author of the Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan.
Depending on which way the wind blows at the next election, we could end up with more of the same policies or the complete opposite. Reform UK has already promised to scrap net zero and states: ‘we must not impoverish ourselves in pursuit of unaffordable, unachievable global CO2 targets’.
I believe the environment is far too important to be used as a political football. We must find a middle road where politicians of all parties put their personal agendas aside and work together.
We need sensible environmental policies and solutions, we need to shout about the benefits that can be achieved: the job security, money going back into the economy, flying the flag for Britain on the world stage.
We need to showcase the fact that there are huge opportunities out there to be successful, to embrace new technologies and yes, to make money out of new ideas – not to be taxed into submission hidden behind a wishy-washy commitment to net zero.
Right now, it feels as if we are being dangled an environmental carrot with one hand and punished with a big stick in the other. We need to remember that the environment should be wider than any one political party.